Cheyenne Underwood is a senior at Foley High School and a member of the graduating class of 2019. She has been on the newspaper staff for two years and has been involved in multiple clubs, including Leo Club, Link Crew, and Future Teachers of America, over the course of her high school career. [Read more…]

As many know, sophomores recently completed ACT Aspire testing, which drained nearly all of entire class. Waking up, dragging yourself out of bed, mentally preparing for a morning filled with trick questions and graphs, and to top it off, you only have a certain amount of time to finish it all. Doing this for four days made me realize that school may not be for me. I mean, all the time and energy I have to use in order to get half of my body out of bed is completely exhausting! And the Aspire testing did not help in aiding a reason for me to stay in school.

But wait…

Who am I to say I want to give up after four days of testing when my long-term goal is to become a Trauma Surgeon? Sounds pretty ridiculous right? Yeah, I know. But I mean, schooling is extremely hard when you actually want to succeed in it. Giving up after four days of testing is just plain nonsense if you think about it too much. The tests just put so much stress on my fellow classmates and I, witnessing how drained we all looked after walking out of the testing area made me reevaluate everything.

Although sometimes I want to alter my long-term goals, my mother would never let me. She would twist my thoughts of giving up until they are black and blue before she allows me to go through with quitting. I mean, four days really isn’t so bad now that I think of it post-testing.

Imagine the years of studying and hundreds of tests that will be taken once I am in college. Ahh, those are the days that I will dread the most, but it will all be worth it in the end. After all, whats another 10+ years going to hurt?

Wait… it will hurt me mentally and drain me physically… geesh. I will soon wish that I only had to take those tests in order to be what I aim for.